Car Review: 1995-2002 Mazda Millenia

1996 Mazda Millenia

Handout, Mazda

by
John LeBlanc, Canwest News Service | August 10, 2011

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Before our second daughter was born, my wife and I narrowed down the ever-growing name list to “Mia” or “Ava.” Going into the labour room, we decided if our child came out screaming we would name her Ava.

Bless her heart (and our ears), she came into this world a Mia. Three months later our naive efforts to have our child’s name reflect her personality have evaporated. Our little sweetheart Mia can switch over to “Ava” at the drop of a receiving blanket.

Back in the early 1990s, Mazda had its own naming challenges. The company was readying to deliver a trio of premium, sport luxury sedans to take on comparable upscale Japanese brands Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti. Naming the cars as Mazdas would simply not project the personality the company was planning for with their new babies. These cars were to have you thinking “Japanese Jaguars,” so the company came up with the European sounding “Amati” brand name.

Blaming the rising value of the Japanese yen at the time, and the simultaneous downturn in North American sales, Mazda got cold feet and pulled the plug on the Amati Division one year before the planned launch. The proposed large, V-12-engined car was canned outright, and the smallest Amati ended up being marketed overseas. That left the midsized Millenia to be sold in North America — but as a Mazda.

Going on sale in spring of 1994 as an early 1995 model, the Millenia was sold in base, base with leather, and the top-of-the-line S. All came with dual airbags, antilock brakes, automatic climate control, alloy wheels, AM/FM/cassette, anti-theft alarm and power everything. By far this was the most luxurious “Mazda” ever.

Base Millenias received a 170 horsepower, 2.5-litre V-6 engine. The Millenia S, on the other hand, was the car that would have lived up to its proposed premium personality. In addition to adding traction control and larger wheels and tires, the top-of-the-line S had its technologically unique Miller-cycle V-6 engine.

The Millenia S was the first production car to make use of the efficiency-enhancing combustion cycle developed by American engineer Ralph H. Miller. In simple terms, Miller had the intake valve close well into the cylinder’s stroke cycle, increasing compression in the process. By using a smaller displacement engine, which further enhances efficiencies, and then adding a supercharger, which offsets the reduced displacement and the late intake-valve closing, one gets 210 h.p. and 210 pound-feet of torque from only 2.3 litres of displacement.

With its standard four-speed automatic transmission — which all Millenias came with — the S was reportedly quicker to 100 km/h than such contemporaries as the Infiniti J30, Mercedes-Benz C280 and Lexus ES 300. Even with the slushbox, the Millenia overcame the Holy Grail of sport sedans, the BMW 325i.

Unheard of is that all of this boosted juice does not come at the expense of fuel economy. The Millenia S’s 11.8 L/100 km fuel consumption rating is also best in its class; in fact it sips less than the lower-powered base Millenia.

Not only considered the most luxurious Mazda-badged car ever, Millenias are arguably the best-built Mazdas too. The company constructed a special plant for the intended Amatis that was able to stamp the car’s entire side frame in one piece. This allowed precise panel gaps tighter than the benchmarked Mercedes of the day.

Pre-owned Millenias benefit from having a zero recall history and only three notable problems that are minor in nature and limited to the first two model years. Non-franchised repair shops report seeing only a few Millenias; despite the technical quirkiness of the Miller engine, the majority of those cars have been robust and trouble-free, the shop operators say.

Realizing the Millenia was overreaching the Mazda brand’s perceived price-point in consumer’s minds, and with slow sales to prove it, the company cut the car’s price by $3,000 to $6,000 in 1999.

Within its eight-year run, the biggest upgrades came in 2001. Mazda increased the chassis’ torsional rigidity by 35 per cent with reinforced crossmembers and a shock tower brace. Bigger front brakes were added. New on the inside were electroluminescent gauges, power lumbar driver’s seat, a new centre console, two-tone leather trim, audio controls on the steering wheel and standard front side air bags.

Since having the mainstream Mazda name attached to the Millenia wasn’t drawing enough of the badge-conscious buyers that the car had originally been conceived for, Mazda made 2002 the car’s last year.

If you have your heart set on an older Lexus ES 300 or Acura 3.2 TL, a pre-owned base-model Millenia provides the same level of the luxury and build quality, but loses out on performance. However, the Millenia S has that in spades, serving as a sporty choice. And without the superior sounding brand name, a Millenia S can be had for up to 20 per cent less on the pre-owned market than either of its two Japanese premium brand competitors.